Humanity faces formidable challenges. We know that within a few decades we will have to enter a new era, with lower consumption and a sustainable relationship with nature, but we do not yet know how. Therefore, we will need knowledge, and a lot of it. It is when the going gets tough that we need the good answers, but today both the development and management of knowledge are under pressure. Knowledge development is not a luxury for good times. Here are three things we must keep in mind, if we believe the future is worth fighting for: 1. We must use the knowledge that is all there is. There are formidable challenges we face in 2022. Climate crisis. Natural crisis. Pandemic and new diseases. Phasing out of fossil energy. Limit the overconsumption of resources. Distribute resources more fairly. To mention something. And we all know the reason. In short, we are victims of our own success. We have succeeded in creating a materially better life for many. We have better health, live longer and have more freedom of choice. But at a price. Development has an unpaid bill that we push onto future generations. We have grown beyond sustainability, both in numbers and in material consumption, and extract much greater natural resources than the planet can withstand. And even if growth flattens out, we still have to settle for a while to become more people on the planet. The next 50 years will not be easy, but at the same time offer an opportunity to create an existence that is better than today, both for ourselves and nature. Today’s crises are global. They threaten our entire basis of life, and they must be solved by thinking radically new and across sectors. It must also happen within just a few decades, if we want to avoid one or more collapses of the welfare society, or the nature we depend on. No one knows exactly what the transition will require. But one thing is certain: whatever we do, it must be knowledge-based. We know more today about both nature and society than ever before in history. It is a good starting point. We know enough to act, but at the same time we have large knowledge gaps. No one has been in this situation before. We have not seen the climate, nature, industry or the economy as it has now become. New knowledge and new knowledge alliances are therefore needed. We must work more and better across disciplines. But both in Norway and elsewhere, science is increasingly called into question, or it is used selectively to support one’s own arguments. All science can be questioned, but not uncritically. We have jointly agreed to train people to manage the collective knowledge for us. We must listen to these experts, now more than ever, because it is precisely in times of crisis that we need what we pay them for. We also have to put the knowledge to use, we don’t have time to “wait and see” and passively make unwise choices. 2. We must support those who disseminate knowledge When did you last hear news from the world of science? Presumably it was conveyed by a journalist, who in turn had spoken to one or more sources. The bridge between the fruits of the enormous effort we put into research and development, and society’s access to knowledge, is often formed by a small group of mediators. People who make an extra effort to both tell about news and to recall the established knowledge. However, it is becoming more and more demanding to communicate knowledge in public. Feedback is becoming tougher and more personal, both directly and in social media. Some cope with this, but not all. Many academics choose to lower the priority of dissemination, on the grounds that they cannot bear to stand in the storms that may blow up. Being active and visible in the media also often comes with a high price, but with low reward career-wise. Mediation has little merit in academia, and often has to be carried out outside normal working hours, without compensation. When you speak publicly, you must always be prepared for responses and rebuttals. Bullying, however, is just as bad among adults online as it is among children in the schoolyard, yet it is unfortunately exactly what many knowledge providers experience today. This weakens our ability to use knowledge for the good of society. 3. We must build on the knowledge we already have. The most important thing is to continue the development of knowledge, so that it can help us safely into the future. Whether it is the industrial revolution, the agricultural revolutions, the IT revolution or today’s multi-headed fight against intolerance and xenophobia. They are all based on knowledge, as well as the dissemination of this knowledge to as many of us as possible. As is well known, crises are never resolved using the same methods with which they were created. Today’s enormous and interconnected challenges therefore also pose a need for knowledge unparalleled in history. Research cannot be free from cuts. But it is when the going gets tough that we need the good answers, and then we also have to find the means to get them. Many of us feel that cold winds are blowing over research, and that research becomes an offsetting item when society registers its immediate needs. It is not the case that all research is good, and there must be strict requirements, but the research and the researchers deserve respect and predictability. Research must be useful, but not only by providing “money in the coffers”. It must also point out uncomfortable truths when needed, it must contribute to an enlightened society and have a time horizon that stretches towards eternity. Over many hundreds of years, universities and other knowledge institutions have given us better lives in many areas, and made us more humane. However, knowledge must be both managed and renewed. We need new recipes for how society should develop for the better of the future. This knowledge must both be created, disseminated and put to use. Only in this way can the next 50 years be a development for the better, both for us and for nature.
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Knowledge for a new age – Speech
